FBI and Homeland Security are looking into the AT&T cellular outage, White House says

• AT&T cell service went out for tens of thousands of Americans on Thursday.
• The company later said the outage was caused by a software update.

A sudden cellular outage left tens of thousands of AT&T customers without service on Thursday — and the feds are looking into it.

While AT&T restored all of its networks by 3 p.m. ET, White House spokesperson John Kirby said that the FBI and Department of Homeland Security are looking into the cellular outage.

"The bottom line is we don't have all the answers," Kirby told reporters on Thursday, according to Reuters.

AT&T later said the outage was caused by a software update. In a Thursday afternoon statement, the company confirmed the outage was not a cyberattack.

"Based on our initial review, we believe that today's outage was caused by the application and execution of an incorrect process used as we were expanding our network, not a cyber attack," the statement said. "We are continuing our assessment of today's outage to ensure we keep delivering the service that our customers deserve."

AT&T also apologized to its customers, saying, keepings its customers connected remains the top priority.

The update came after Executive Assistant Director at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency Eric Goldstein told BI that the agency was aware of reports and working closely with AT&T to understand the cause of the outage and its impacts.

CISA operates within the Department of Homeland Security.

The Federal Communications Commission also said it's investigating.

"We are aware of the reported wireless outages, and our Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau is actively investigating," the agency shared in a statement with BI. "We are in touch with AT&T and public safety authorities, including FirstNet, as well as other providers."

The FBI also confirmed that they are looking into the outage and said that "should we learn of any malicious activity we will respond accordingly."

Kirby said that US officials have been told that AT&T had no reason to think the outage was a cyber security incident, Reuters reported.

In addition to inconveniencing customers, the issue threatened emergency services nationwide since people couldn't make phone calls or send text messages. Local officials and emergency departments pushed out alerts throughout the day advising people to use Wi-Fi to make calls.

AT&T told BI that the network was taking steps to make sure the issue doesn't happen again.

The White House did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

February 22, 2024: This story has been updated to include AT&T's update about the outage.